


this feels like falling in love

by bageldiscourse



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Blow Jobs, Domestic, Getting Together, M/M, Multi, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-05 01:53:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18356189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bageldiscourse/pseuds/bageldiscourse
Summary: Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? Alexander would like to believe that, but he couldn’t imagine a fondness stronger than the one he feels every time he’s around them. He couldn’t imagine a world where his heart doesn’t skip a beat every time J.T. smiles, easy and pleased and, underneath it all, a little vulnerable. Or—when Tyson volunteers to help Alexander make brownies, and looks over at Alexander, the bridge of his nose dusted with flour and his hands sticky with chocolate.When the three of them are driving to practice in the morning, Alexander in the backseat and Tyson and J.T. holding hands and Alexander just—wanting.





	this feels like falling in love

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [racheesi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/racheesi/pseuds/racheesi) in the [wesmashing](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/wesmashing) collection. 



> to all the angels who read this over + held my hand while i wrote this love letter to alexander kerfoot and his big feelings, i love and appreciate you all
> 
> aaaand to the rest of u, enjoy!

For as much as Alexander loves his roommates, he never anticipated the way he’d feel when the two of them started dating.

Alexander is mature enough to recognize that he’s not _jealous_ , per se, but. Something like it, maybe. It’s hard to ignore the way he feels whenever he thinks about the way Tyson and J.T. know each other better than they know themselves. The way they look at each other with such raw adoration, knowing they’ll always be on the same page and on each other’s side.

Put simply, they’re probably the closest thing to soulmates you can get in the real world.

He wants to be able to keep his distance from their whole lovey-dovey bullshit whenever possible, because that’s their business and absolutely not his, but he’s also realistic about the situation he’s in, which is that he lives and plays hockey with them, so. It’s not exactly feasible to think he can get away with that, regardless of how much he would like to.

More often than not, Alexander gets home to find them making out on the couch in the living room, or they’ll all watch a movie together and Alexander will be acutely aware of the way they’re cuddling, their hands linked and Tyson sitting fully in J.T.’s lap.

It’s not exactly easy to deal with, is what he’s trying to say here, and he’s constantly reminded of this fact, but some moments are harder to ignore than others. Take tonight, for example: the three of them are making dinner together, and if all goes well, they’ll be having chicken carbonara soon. Alexander wouldn’t consider any of them, like, _great_ cooks or anything, but they can hold their own and it’s pretty hard to fuck up following a detailed recipe.

Alexander is at the stove stirring the sauce, and J.T. and Tyson are chopping and seasoning some chicken, and he’s about to ask them to pass the chicken, so he can mix it into the sauce. Easy enough—except, when he looks over, Tyson’s eyes have fluttered shut and J.T. has wrapped his hands around Tyson’s waist from behind, and he’s sucking a hickey into the curve of his neck.

So, uh. Maybe now’s not such a good time to interrupt them.

Alexander spends objectively too long looking at the two of them—the easy, unhurried way they pack on the PDA, like there’s nobody in the room, nobody in the _world_ but the two of them, and feels a twinge of something like desire in the deepest corners of his chest.

Except—that can’t be it, because they’re his best friends, and they’re _dating_ , and he’s happy for them. Really. He’s never seen either of them happier than when they’re with each other. Gravy even described it the other day as “the most wholesome shit,” and, well, Alexander doesn’t disagree.

Anyway, he has to pull them apart eventually before this sauce burns and their dinner goes to shit. Once they’ve stopped their lovefest and are just smiling lopsidedly at each other like a scene straight out of a ‘90s romcom, Alexander clears his throat and says, “Hey, uh, one of you wanna pass me the chicken?”

J.T.’s the one who looks away first, and he smiles brightly at Alexander and says, “Yeah, of course.” He reaches over Tyson’s shoulder and grabs the cutting board, hands it over to Alexander.

“Thanks,” Alexander mumbles, admittedly distracted by the way Tyson looks right now, well on his way to debauched and looking at J.T. like he hung the stars in the evening sky. Alexander looks at him and wonders what it’s like to be so in love with another person, to see your future unfold in someone else’s eyes.

Dipping his spoon into the sauce to give it a taste, Alexander pushes the thought of the two of them to the back of his mind; it’s not at all worth his time to dwell over something he has no control over.

 

Alexander’s favorite flower is the orchid.

Ever since he was young, orchids have always caught his attention as being the most visually fascinating flower in the front yard of his childhood home. His mother loved to garden, and would teach him how to keep plants alive during the summers he would come home.

In college, Alexander kept a small orchid plant in his room, sitting on the windowsill, and it remained the one constant in his life outside of hockey and going to classes and stopping at one of the dining halls in between the two.

The summer before he heads out to Denver, he leaves the plant at home with his mom, and she promises to take good care of it. He feels—empty, almost, landing in a new city without the orchid plant that’s become as much a part of him as anything else in his life.

As training camp ends and the regular season begins, Alexander starts to feel more and more comfortable with his place on the team. A month or so into the season, he moves in with J.T. and Tyson, two young guys on the team that he’s quickly become friends with because they’re all at the same place in their incipient careers. They get the notice that they’ve made the team on the same day, and out of convenience the three of them decide to split the rent and live together.

After they’ve gotten settled into the place, Alexander starts to notice that his two roommates are, without a doubt, completely infatuated with one another.

 

It goes like this: J.T. falls first; Tyson falls harder.

 

They meet halfway, and by the time winter comes, they’re holding hands under the table and sleeping in the same bed and everything’s the same except it _isn’t_.

 

This afternoon is no exception; as has become routine recently, Alexander walks into the house to find Tyson and J.T. making out on the living room couch.

Alexander notices, this time, J.T.’s steadying hand under Tyson’s shirt, a necessity to keep Tyson from falling out of his lap but a token of affection just the same. He looks at the soft sunlight filtering into the room and illuminating Tyson’s hair golden. He watches Tyson work at getting J.T.’s shirt off, and he thinks about how long it took for them to _get_ there.

(All the knees pressed together at team dinners, the soft, longing smiles when the other isn’t looking, the time Tyson held his hand out, a coy and unspoken invitation, across the armrest to J.T. on the plane without J.T. ever noticing.)

Alexander looks at Tyson’s bright, unabashedly happy smile, and thinks that even the Denver sun pales in comparison to the way it feels to look at Tyson when he’s in love.

He doesn’t even let himself entertain the idea of being looked at like that by Tyson, because it’s a look reserved for J.T. only, so there’s no use in pretending it could ever be any different.

Instead, he takes a cold shower and a nap, and feels marginally less upside-down about things once he joins them for dinner.

 

Things complicate a bit when, on a random Thursday in mid-January, Tyson gets sent down to the AHL.

It doesn’t come all the way as a surprise, as he’s not been playing spectacular as of late, but. Alexander wakes up to the news in the form of Tyson in his bedroom packing a bag and J.T. sitting slumped over on the couch in the living room, looking blankly at whatever’s playing on the TV.

He walks over to Tyson, who looks more approachable out of the two of them, and pulls him into a hug; he can’t think of anything to say that would suffice, right now.

Too full of nerves to sleep, Alexander bakes two dozen cookies while J.T. takes his pregame nap. He wraps them up carefully, and before closing the box he slips in a post-it note on which he’s written _Couldn’t sleep, made these for you. I know it’s too much. We miss you._

He mails them off that afternoon on his way to the rink, telling J.T. it’s for his mom when he asks why they’re stopping at the post office.

Although Tyson won’t get them for another day or two, they give Alexander some peace of mind and he’s able to push it to the back of his mind and focus on hockey for the rest of the day.

 

(Predictably, the first day without Tyson is the worst.

Everything feels— _wrong_ , without him, like a nearly-complete puzzle without the last piece, and J.T. is in a bad mood that even four rounds of NHL and an order of Domino’s dessert can’t fix.

At least, the next day, J.T. puts on a performative smile and says yes when Alexander suggests they go out to lunch after morning skate.)

 

Although Alexander has been acclimated to cold winters since he was young, living in Vancouver and then Boston, his body has always had a tendency to betray him around this time of year; toward the end of January, Alexander catches a cold, which he stubbornly tries to ignore for a few days until he has a sneezing fit while watching a movie with J.T.

“You feeling okay?” J.T. asks, handing him the box of tissues on the coffee table.

“Fine,” Alexander insists, then pauses to sneeze once more, “just feeling a little sick.”

J.T. grabs the blanket draped over the back of the couch and hands it over to Alexander, and then gets up. “I’m gonna make you tea, and then you’re going to bed.”

Alexander frowns. “It’s only 10:30.”

“And we have a game tomorrow, so you need rest.”

“J.T., I’m _fine_ ,” Alexander insists, but he doesn’t make an active effort to get up and do anything about it, which probably speaks for itself.

“Sugar or honey?” J.T. calls from the kitchen.

“Uh, a little honey,” Alexander says. “Maybe some lemon, if we have any?”

“Got you, Kerf,” J.T. says, walking into the room a minute later with a mug of tea and the bottle of NyQuil from the medicine cabinet. Handing both to Alexander, he says, “Drink up.”

Alexander concedes to J.T. because it’s easier than fighting him about it, and ends up falling asleep on the couch that night after finishing a cup and a half of tea. He’s resting his head on J.T.’s shoulder as they watch HGTV without the sound on per Alexander’s request, and it’s all too easy to let himself drift off to sleep like that.

(The next morning, Alexander wakes up with a pillow under his head and an additional blanket draped over him, and as warm as he feels with the substitute for J.T.’s own body heat, he finds himself missing the real thing.)

 

Alexander starts to feel better the next morning, and isn’t sick enough to get scratched for the afternoon game, so he plays.

He doesn’t score, but they win, and he’ll take that any day of the week. When they get home J.T. offers to help with dinner, which—he doesn’t usually do, unless Tyson also wants to help, becauses he gets frustrated quickly in the kitchen and also doesn’t really know what he’s doing, so he tends to be pretty useless in the ‘help’ department.

Today, though, he seems uncharacteristically enthusiastic about it, even asking if Alexander would teach him how to make curried cauliflower. “C’mon,” he chirps, “I’m sure you learned _something_ at Harvard, yeah?”

Alexander scoffs. “I didn’t learn how to cook at—”

J.T. empties the bag of cauliflower onto the baking pan and says, “Less talking, more cooking, Kerf.”

“You’re not a very good student,” Alexander says, batting J.T.’s hand away when he tries to steal a generous handful to snack on.

Alexander shows him how to make the dish, though, the way his mom made it for him when he was younger, and her mom before her, and J.T. actually looks pretty into it when Alexander sneaks glances over at him.

It’s— _endearing_ , watching the way J.T. looks self-satisfied as he’s eating, later, because it’s something he, for the most part, made by himself; if he wanted to, he could pinpoint the butterflies doing backflips in his stomach at how intimate all of this is, just the two of them, but.

But. Alexander would rather not notice the part of him that’s a little in love with his best friend who’s in a committed relationship for the foreseeable future. It’s fucked up, probably, but he _likes_ this fantasy world he’s in where he gets to have this without his feelings getting in the way of anything. He thinks, if nothing more, he deserves this much.

 

The first time Tyson calls J.T. after being sent down, Alexander can see the moment J.T.’s face lights up when he goes to check his phone.

It’s only been four days since Tyson left, but J.T.’s seemed slightly off-kilter, never completely _there_ when he and Alexander eat breakfast in silence together or watch a movie together like they always do, even though it’s never just the two of them. Alexander understands.

Alexander excuses himself to his room so as to give them some alone time, and when he walks back into the room a few hours later with the intention of asking J.T. if they should cook or order out for dinner, they’re still on the phone talking.

For a minute, he lets himself consider whether they might fall asleep on the phone together, or if they could possibly get sick of each other and hang up before that. He pictures being on either end of that conversation, listening to the steady thrum of a heartbeat in sync with his own to put him to sleep. He thinks about how they both must feel to be apart, how it all must feel so unfair, and he gets a pan, the bag of cauliflower, and some spices out to start cooking dinner.

(He makes enough curried cauliflower for three portions as he usually would, and leaves a plate out for J.T. before going back into his room for the night. In the morning, it’s gone; the dishes and the leftovers in the sink have been cleaned and put away.

Alexander doesn’t know what any of this means.)

 

The following Friday, as they’re finishing up dinner, J.T. gets a call from Tyson.

J.T. looks at his phone and then at Alexander, and Alexander waves him away. “I’ll take care of the dishes, go do your thing.”

It’s then that Alexander notices how beautiful J.T. is when he smiles. “You’re the best, thank you,” he’s saying, but Alexander is still hooked on the way his eyes sparkled a little, against the soft early evening sunlight streaming through the window.

And then he’s gone, and Alexander is left only in the company of the vase of white roses perched in the the middle of the table. They’re starting to wilt, the edges of their petals drooping much like Alexander’s own shoulders right now. There’s some sort of irony in that, he knows, but doesn’t entertain the thought long enough to figure it out.

 

The Wednesday after that throws Alexander for a loop.

He’s about to shower, exhausted from an especially long morning skate, when his phone rings. He’s expecting the call to be from his mom, or maybe his sister, because he knows she’s got a hard week at school coming up, but when he leans over to grab it from his bed, Tyson’s name lights up his screen.

“Hey,” Alexander says, and then, because he’s expecting Tyson to be calling because there’s something wrong, “you okay?”

“Never better, Kerfy,” Tyson says. “I’m on my way back from practice and I just needed to complain about the shitty drivers up here. J.T.’s at the store and whenever I call him when he’s there he always gets distracted and ends up buying random crap we don’t even like. So.”

Alexander pauses for a minute before responding, because—well. This is new: Tyson calling _just because_. He thought that was his and J.T.’s thing, if he’s being honest, and he’d long since made peace with that fact, so to hear Tyson calling him comes, understandably, as a surprise he doesn’t know what to do with. “Okay, yeah, go ahead.”

“So, I’m driving to morning skate, yeah? And oh my _God_ , this woman cuts me off out of nowhere—” Tyson begins, and then he starts talking at a mile a minute and Alexander sighs fondly, putting him on speaker as he cleans his room just for something to do, occasionally giving a response to let Tyson know he’s still here.

It’s _nice_ , is the thing. Alexander tries not to like it too much, because it’s a convenience thing more than it’s an Alexander Thing, and he has to be okay with that.

Tyson hangs up when he gets back to his hotel, because he needs a shower and a nap, and Alexander sits at the edge of his bed for a few minutes thinking about how, if Tyson were still here, he’d get the real thing and would only settle for having Tyson from less of a distance, as opposed to today’s phone call; not much later, though, the sound of J.T. walking through the front door snaps him out of his reverie and he goes to help him put away the groceries.

 

Alexander didn’t mean to fall in love with both J.T. _and_ Tyson, but in hindsight he’s resigned himself to the fact that he was always going to.

 _Absence makes the heart grow fonder_ , right? Alexander would like to believe that, but he couldn’t imagine a fondness stronger than the one he feels every time he’s around them. He couldn’t imagine a world where his heart doesn’t skip a beat every time J.T. smiles, easy and pleased and, underneath it all, a little vulnerable. Or—when Tyson volunteers to help Alexander make brownies, and looks over at Alexander, the bridge of his nose dusted with flour and his hands sticky with chocolate.

When the three of them are driving to practice in the morning, Alexander in the backseat and Tyson and J.T. holding hands and Alexander just— _wanting_.

(For what it’s worth, Alexander thinks the thing that pushed his feelings over the edge was, knock on wood, the way they are with each other.

Like, okay—here’s the thing: the Avs are a pretty handsy, flirty team; that’s as much a fact as ‘the sky is blue’ is.

You have Gabe and Tyson being—well, GabeandTyson, codependent and tooth-rottingly sweet. Alexander has his suspicions about Gravy and Dries as well, what with the whole small and tall thing going on; they’re always, like, chirping each other a little too kindly, and on multiple occasions during team meetings Sheldon has gravitated to Ryan’s lap like it’s where he belongs, Ryan’s arms wrapped around his waist.

He’s used to all of it, by now, and it’s great, but—it’s _different_ , with J.T. and Josty.

Josty pulls a smile out of J.T. like few others can; he’s a completely different person around Tyson, acting the same way he does when he hasn’t had his coffee as when Tyson isn’t in the room with him.

Most couples are, generally, on the same page, but J.T. and Tyson are so in sync it’s _fascinating_ , sometimes, watching their interactions.)

Just as sure as Alexander will brush his teeth in the morning, or be the tiebreaker when his roommates can’t choose a movie for the three of them to watch, J.T. and Tyson will be stuck on his mind. And if that’s all they’ll be to him, he can be okay with that.

 

As boring as it sounds, Alexander likes to do laundry.

It’s time he gets to himself, and there’s something relaxing about sitting in front of the TV with a movie on and folding a basket of clothes. It’s an especially useful habit to enjoy, given that he lives with two boys who are impressively lazy when it comes to this kind of stuff.

Most of the time, for convenience’s sake, he combines everyone’s laundry into one load and worries about sorting out whose clothes belong to who once it’s all clean. For the most part, this has worked for them, Alexander knowing which clothes are his own and handing the rest over for J.T. and Tyson to sort through themselves. Tyson has also been deliberate about wearing J.T.’s old Michigan sweatshirts as of late, which Alexander only noticed because it’s a little big around the shoulders on him. And that’s not—out of the ordinary, necessarily, for Tyson to wear J.T.’s clothes, since they’re dating, and that’s typical couple behavior. So that eases the process a little, too.

What Alexander _would_ call out of the ordinary is, when he walks through the front door after dinner with a couple of the guys and into the kitchen, J.T. asking him, “Is that Josty’s hoodie?”

Alexander looks down at the hoodie he’s wearing, plain gray and just barely too small on him, and says, “I mean. Maybe?”

“I’m pretty sure it is,” J.T. says, thoughtful. “It looks like the one I got him last Christmas after he lost his other one.”

“Do you want me to—” Alexander says, and then he starts to take it off, but J.T. cuts him off with an abrupt “No, keep it on.”

Alexander pauses. “Huh?”

J.T. shrugs. “Looks good on you.”

And Alexander really doesn’t know what to do with _that_ —of Tyson’s unmistakable citrusy scent enveloping his senses suddenly, of the way J.T. looks consideringly at him with the beginning uptick of a smile, of the way he can feel his cheeks heating up at the words _looks good on you_.

He can’t be reading this wrong, right?

 

(When he says he doesn’t know what to do with that—it’s not entirely true; he _does_ know what to do, and that, unfortunately, is jerking off in the shower as he thinks about how wearing Tyson’s hoodie felt, how it would feel for Tyson to take it off him and skate light touches over Alexander’s bare skin, thinks about kissing J.T. until he can think of nothing else but J.T.’s name and the feeling of his mouth against Alexander’s own.

So—yeah. He’s in pretty deep.)

 

Though it hasn’t affected his performance on the ice, Alexander has been—tense, lately, wrapped up in his own head about his out-of-control crush on J.T. and Tyson. Nothing takes the mind off things quite like tequila shots.

After their next game, Alexander heads over to the bar the team frequents that’s close enough by his house to walk and immediately orders two shots when he sits down. Even by Friday night standards the place is pretty packed, and it’s _loud_ , and it takes him a minute to notice that the guy next to him is trying to start a conversation.

He introduces himself as Luke and then offers to buy Alexander a real drink; Luke has green eyes and fiery red hair that’s almost too familiar for comfort and he says he’s more of a baseball guy than a hockey fan. It becomes glaringly obvious this guy’s only interested in sleeping with him, because he keeps buying Alexander drinks and they talk about nothing that matters at all until Luke eventually gets to the point and asks if he’s seeing anyone.

Alexander says no, and when Luke suggests they go back to his place, Alexander hits the panic button and hears himself saying, “I can’t do this, I’m sorry, I have to go, I’m—yeah, gonna go,” and then he’s making his way through the crowd of people and out the door before he can think through what just happened.

He stumbles through the doorway maybe ten minutes later, because he gets lost and almost passes the house and has to fumble for a few minutes with unlocking the front door; he only realizes how drunk he is when it takes him three tries to untie his sneakers in the hallway.

He’s about to walk into his room when he hears Tyson yell from the next room, “Kerfy? You okay?”

“Been better, buddy,” Alexander replies curtly, pushing the door to his room closed harder than is absolutely necessary. He falls back onto his bed and closes his eyes, his head spinning a little. Without thinking, he reaches for Tyson’s hoodie and puts it on, immediately overwhelmed by how much like _Tyson_ it smells. Alexander has been wearing—and has washed—the thing, but it still smells like Tyson, though, but it also smells like Alexander’s shampoo, now, and the combination should frustrate him, but he finds it’s more calming than anything else as he starts to falls asleep.

 

(Waking up the next morning wearing Tyson’s hoodie with the beginning of a migraine and an unfortunately complete recollection of the night before, Alexander steadfastly tries to ignore how beyond fucked he is.

You can imagine how that works out.)

 

J.T. and Tyson aren’t home the following night, because they’re out to dinner, and Alexander isn’t expecting them back until around nine. Except—

It’s half past eight now, and Alexander can’t stop thinking about them.

He’s thinking about how they fit together so perfectly, whether it’s Tyson’s hand in J.T.’s or J.T.’s refined composure to balance out Tyson’s tendency to spontaneously think with his heart and not his head.

God, they’re _perfect_ for each other. It’s almost too good to be true.

Alexander—he may never find that, which is a shitty realization to have because of his two best friends, but that seems to be the way things are going right now.

His phone rings, effectively bringing him back to reality. He picks up right away, because it’s his mom, and it’s been a good few weeks since they’ve talked on the phone, and he’s missed her.

“Hey, mom,” Alexander says, putting his phone on speaker and getting comfortable under a blanket.

(He’s been making good use of sweatshirts—his own, this time—and blankets ever since Tyson’s been back, because Tyson inexplicably likes it cold; J.T. lets him have control over the thermostat, because he likes Tyson, and Alexander doesn’t complain because he likes them both.)

She starts to ramble for a while about how Alexander’s siblings are doing, and about the trip to Florida she and Alex’s dad went on just a few weeks ago and how it was nice being able to wear shorts and dresses again; once Alexander starts to space out, by now completely used to her particular brand of nonsense digression, his mom brings him right back by mentioning something about J.T. and Tyson.

“Sorry, what did you say?” Alexander asks, sitting upright.

“I asked how your friends J.T. and Tyson are doing, honey.”

“They’re—you know how they are,” Alexander shrugs. He almost feels _defensive_ about his answer, which is so the opposite of chill, so he adds, “Okay, I guess.”

“Alexander, tell me what’s on your mind. You seem distracted by something.”

“You can’t laugh, okay, it’s a little dumb—it’s the _dumbest_ thing, actually,” Alexander says, and when his mom earnestly promises not to laugh, he tells her everything. He tells her how it all started, and how it should’ve stopped at just a crush, how he was never meant to fall head-over-heels _twice_ , how he knows there’s no use in telling them anyway because Alexander couldn’t even imagine a universe where either of them would feel the same way about him.

How they’re the happiest Alexander has ever seen them, and he wouldn’t dare complicate that just because he caught feelings he never planned for.

His mother sounds sympathetic when he’s finished, telling him that it’s all going to be okay and it’ll work itself out in no time, and Alexander just wishes she was here with him so he could be pulled into one of the warm hugs he remembers so vividly from when he was younger. Thinking about it makes him want to _cry_ , which is lame, so instead of doing that he says “I miss you,” and then “I know,” when she tells him he ought to call her more often if he misses her so much.

“I’ll call soon, okay?” Alexander says, and when she tells him to take care of himself and say hi to J.T. and Tyson for her, he hangs up and pockets his phone.

Alexander quickly becomes uncomfortable with the silence of the room, so he looks over his shoulder at the clock on the wall. In its place when he looks, though, are J.T. and Tyson, kind of lingering in the doorway. Their expressions are a careful neutral; for a long moment he thinks he might have ruined everything, depending on what they heard.

It’s _embarrassing_ , really, because he was going to tell them eventually; this, naturally, didn’t make it into his plans in doing so.

“You’re back early,” Alexander eventually says, trying for casual and ending up with anything but.

Neither of them say anything to that, J.T. and Tyson refusing to even look at him right now, and Alexander tries to pretend this isn’t the most awkward situation of his entire adult life. “How was your date?”

Tyson lets himself smile at that, hands still shoved in his pockets. “It was nice. We went bowling after dinner.”

“I kicked his ass, as usual,” J.T. says, and normally all three of them would laugh, but—they don’t, this time.

Alexander might lose his mind if they keep pretending they didn’t just hear him admit out loud that he’s in love with them both. There’s really no coming back from this, no matter what the outcome may be. “So how much of that did you guys . . .”

J.T. is looking down at the carpet as Tyson says, “I mean. Enough?”

“Listen, I’m—” Alexander says, hesitates for a long few seconds because he’s not sure what he’s supposed to _say_ here. “We can just—it’s nothing, just forget it, okay—”

“What if we don’t want to forget it,” J.T. says, his words coming out as more of a statement than a question, and Alexander can’t be imagining the way it sounds a little shaky.

“Well,” Alexander says, a little quiet, because he’s not exactly sure he’s on the same page they are, “then I’d say we should sit and talk about this.”

Both J.T. and Tyson nod, and they sit on either side of him, and suddenly everything seems too real. He can hear his heart beating, loud and erratic, and as he looks at J.T. and then Tyson he quickly realizes they’re expecting him to explain himself first.

He takes a deep breath and when he’s ready he tells them as much of the story as he feels is absolutely pertinent, because he doesn’t want to overdo it.

“Alexander,” Tyson says, frowning ever so slightly. “We didn’t know.”

Alexander laughs, a short and forced thing. “That was the idea, yeah.”

Tyson looks over at J.T. and says, “Do you want to—?”

“Yeah,” J.T. says, and then he looks at Alexander earnestly and says, “Kerf, we’re—Tyson and I are both really into you.”

Alexander is expecting there to be a ‘but’ tacked onto the end of that thought, because there’s no way it’s this easy. This isn’t a neatly wrapped Hallmark movie, and real life doesn’t work like one. But then J.T. says, “We really like you, and we have for awhile, but—you know, Tyson and I have only been together a few months, and we didn’t want to rush into anything. We just wanted to be sure.”

“And you’re sure now?”

“We are,” J.T. confirms, and he sounds so sure when he says it, and Alexander thinks _maybe_.

“Is this just—a sex thing?” Alexander asks, because when he looks over, Tyson’s not even trying to hide the fact that he’s looking at Alex’s lips, red and a little swollen from biting it.

“It can be,” J.T. says slowly. “But—if it’s okay with you, we wanted more. We want to date you, Kerf.”

“‘If it’s okay,’ you’re not _serious_ ,” Alexander says, and that finally gets all three of them to laugh. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s more than okay—I’ve wanted this forever, are you fucking—” he says, and then, realizing he’s rambling, he finishes with, “—um, yeah. It’s okay.”

With a gentle but nonetheless confident hand pushing Alexander’s hair away from his forehead, J.T. captures Alexander’s gaze for what feels like an eternity until Alexander grows impatient and leans in to close the mere inches of space between them and kiss him. He’s wanted this—they’ve _both_ wanted this—for so long, and it’s nothing short of intoxicating to finally be able to have it. Alexander hums in the back of his throat when J.T. tightens his grip in his hair and bites at his bottom lip, and he can’t find it in him to feel anything but smug about it.

“Still okay?” J.T. asks, once they pull away. Alexander can feel the goofy, genuine smile on his face as he nods, and he’s willing to bet his hair is a mess, but J.T. is still looking at him like he’s the best thing he’s ever seen.

“Hey, my turn,” Tyson says from his other side, and Alexander couldn’t imagine ever saying no to that. Tyson tugs Alexander gently into his lap, and Alexander takes a minute to just appreciate this moment, of Tyson’s eyes flickering down to Alexander’s lips, J.T. dropping a light kiss onto his shoulder. After so long just waiting, thinking he’d never get to have any of this, and now—

Now, he has it so much better than he ever thought he would.

Tyson kisses gentle, a hand coming up to cradle Alexander’s cheek as the other takes time to learn his way around Alexander—his free hand coming up under his shirt, skating across his abs and tracing feather-light shapes into his hip, driving Alexander absolutely crazy with it.

After what feels like a lifetime, Tyson pulls away, just to look over at J.T. and then say to both of them, with the faintest smile, “Bedroom?”

It’s less a question and more a confirmation of what they’re all thinking, but before Alexander can think about whether it needs an answer, Tyson’s grabbing his hand, tugging him up and in that direction, J.T. following close behind.

Tyson mumbles a lot of things while they make out, Alexander quickly picks up on; once they make it to the bedroom, in addition to a slew of profanities, Alexander catches _fucking incredible_ , _so good_ , and, most notably, _wanna blow you so bad_.

“Did you say—” Alexander starts, because _fuck_ , does he want that too. “You should—blow me, yeah.”

Tyson grins and takes a step back, so he and Alexander can unbutton his shirt and step out of his jeans. J.T.’s sitting on the bed when Alexander looks up again, still clad in sweatpants and an old Michigan t-shirt, but before Alexander can tell him there’s something _very_ wrong with that, J.T. says, “Come here, sit,” spreading his legs wide enough for Alexander to fit in between them. He lets his head drop onto J.T.’s shoulder, eyes falling shut, and J.T. sucks a hickey into his exposed neck while Tyson settles on his knees in front of him.

“Let’s get these off, yeah?” Tyson says, hooking his thumb in the waistband of Alexander’s boxers. J.T. helps Alexander raise his hips enough for Tyson to tug them off enough, down to his knees.

Alexander has been on the receiving end of foreplay a fair amount of times, and it’s good, for the most part, but nothing compares to the way Tyson’s taking it slow, right now. He presses open-mouthed kisses to Alexander’s inner thigh, occasionally leaving the faintest impression of teeth but never giving any attention to where Alexander wants it most. He plants a hand in Tyson’s curls and sighs when Tyson finally gets his mouth on Alexander’s dick, licking a neat stripe from base to tip.

From there Tyson finally gives him what he wants, taking Alexander’s dick into his mouth and sucking gently, his mouth hot and wet and his effortless dexterity completely enthralling.

Gradually Tyson speeds up, and between that and J.T.’s littering of hickeys over his neck and down to his collarbone, Alexander comes so fast he almost feels embarrassed about it. He doesn’t, though, because it’s J.T. and it’s Tyson and nothing feels as right as being in bed with them right now does.

After wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Tyson says, “How was that?”

Alexander rolls his eyes. “Fuck you, you know it was good.”

Tyson grins and says, “Gotta be sure.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Alexander says, but he can’t stop smiling, which probably says more than his words do. “Come here.” He moves off of J.T.’s lap and after a little strategic thinking, they arrange themselves on the bed in a way that’s comfortable for all of them. Alexander falls asleep with his arm draped around Tyson’s stomach and J.T. pressed close against him, and it’s very much something he could get used to.

 

The next morning, he wakes up alone, which is—not the greatest feeling in the world.

It takes him a moment to remember last night, and when he does his stomach flips, because—sure, they told him it wasn’t just a one-time thing, but. Things change, maybe.

He wouldn’t hold it against them if they did, and maybe they should, take everything back and return to their comfort zone where it’s easy and it’s worth it.

Before he can convince himself to do something stupid like say _I’ve changed my mind, I’m sorry, we can’t do this after all_ he gets out of bed, pulls on a pair of sweats, and walks over to the kitchen for some breakfast.

When he walks into the room J.T. and Tyson are making pancakes, and Tyson’s the one who looks up first. “Good morning!” he says, looking at Alexander like he’s the best thing he’s ever seen as he walks over to him. When he’s close enough, he pulls Alexander into a kiss that’s soft and kind, and that mostly steadies Alexander’s apprehensive heartbeat.

“Good morning,” Alexander says, once Tyson pulls away. “I thought—when I woke up alone, that maybe you guys—”

Tyson frowns and says softly, “We wanted to surprise you. We didn’t mean to leave you, we wouldn’t—we _won’t_. Promise.”

Alexander closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, before he says, “Okay.”

Tyson takes Alex’s hand in his, leading him to the table where J.T.’s setting out three plates stacked with pancakes, and Alexander lets himself stop worrying and just enjoy this.

(“So I was thinking,” J.T. says at the end of breakfast, around a bite, “maybe we could move some of your clothes and stuff into our room later today?”

Alexander hesitates a moment before saying, “You’re sure?”

He looks at Tyson and J.T.’s affirmative, auspicious nods at the same time, and—

 _Yeah. This is worth it_ , he thinks, as he says, “Yeah, let’s do it.”)

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact, i deliberately tried to make this 6700 words, because 13+17+37=67
> 
> and i got so! close! but then uh. deadlines happened.
> 
> it's the thought that counts :)


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